Christians mark Good Friday in isolation

Priests inWarsaw, Poland, take confession from the faithful on Good Friday (Czarek Sokolowski/AP)

Christians are commemorating Good Friday without the solemn church services or emotional processions of previous years in a world locked down by the coronavirus pandemic.

The chanting of a small group of clerics inside Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre echoed faintly through the heavy wooden doors, as a few people stopped and kneeled outside to pray.

The centuries-old church, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead, is usually packed with pilgrims and tourists.

A priest peers from a window in the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (Ariel Schalit/AP)

Later, three monks in brown robes and blue surgical masks prayed at the stations of the cross along the Via Dolorosa, the ancient route through the Old City where Jesus is believed to have carried the cross before his execution at the hands of the Romans. It runs past dozens of shops, cafes, restaurants and hostels, nearly all of which are closed.

In ordinary times, tens of thousands of pilgrims from around the world retrace Jesus’s steps in the Holy Week leading up to Easter. But this year, flights are grounded and religious sites in the Holy Land are closed as authorities try to prevent the spread of the virus.

James Joseph, a Christian pilgrim from Detroit, dubbed “the Jesus guy” because he wears robes and goes about barefoot, lives near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre year-round. On Friday morning he had the plaza outside to himself.

He said Good Friday has special meaning this year: “The crucifixion is the saddest thing possible, and (Jesus) felt what we feel right now,” he said. “But thanks be to God … He rose from the dead and changed the world on Easter.”

In Rome, the torch-lit Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum is a highlight of Holy Week, drawing large crowds of pilgrims, tourists and locals. It has been cancelled this year, along with all other public gatherings in Italy, which is battling one of the worst outbreaks.

Instead, Pope Francis presided over a torch-lit procession in an otherwise empty St Peter’s Square, with nurses and doctors among those holding a cross.

Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)

Francis watched from the steps outside St Peter’s Basilica as the procession, which included a uniformed police officer and a prison chaplain, circled around the square’s central obelisk.

Notre Dame cathedral is holding a special Good Friday ceremony in the landmark’s charred interior but it is closed to the public (Christophe Ena/AP)

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, nearly destroyed by fire a year ago, is holding a special Good Friday ceremony in the charred, gutted interior of the medieval landmark.

But the event is closed to the public for two reasons: France’s strict virus confinement measures forbid religious or any other gatherings, and the cathedral remains too structurally unstable to let parishioners inside.

“We wanted to send a message of hope” through the ceremony, Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit told reporters this week.

“The message of hope is especially important for our compatriots at a time when we are particularly affected by the coronavirus, which is sowing anguish and death,” he said.

A crucifix in front of the closed doors of St Peter’s parish church in Manila (Aaron Favila/AP)

In the Philippines, Asia’s bastion of Catholicism, masses and other solemn gatherings have been put on hold, including folk rituals that feature real-life crucifixions and usually draw thousands of tourists and penitents.

The annual procession of the “Black Nazarene”, a centuries-old statue of Jesus, through central Manila, has also been cancelled.

Churchgoers have been told to stay home and remember Jesus’s suffering through family prayers, fasting and by watching masses and religious shows on TV or online.

For Josille Sabsal, it is a test of faith. The 30-year-old Catholic missionary tried to replicate an altar in her home in the capital by setting up a laptop, a crucifix and small statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on a table.

“It’s different, because the priest is on a screen,” she said. “When the internet lags, the mass suddenly gets cut off and you have to look for another YouTube video.

“I miss that moment in church when you say ‘Peace be with you’ to complete strangers and they smile back.

The Rev Flavie Villanueva, a former drug addict who ministers in Manila’s slums, got special permission to celebrate Mass on Thursday for 73 homeless people in a college basketball court. They wore masks, stayed more than an arm’s length apart, and there was no singing.

He said he was sad to see the churches emptied out, but hopes it will help people to renew their faith.

“We are asked to go back and rediscover where the church in our lives first started, and that’s in the family.”

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